Marais de Bourges – Wikipedia

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THE Bourges marshes , or Marsh of the Yèvre and La Vévantelle , constitute in the major bed of the Yèvre river and east of the city center of Bourges, an enclave of 135 ha former marshes arranged by humans from the VIII It is century, and today dedicated to forms of urban agriculture (private vegetable gardens or ornament) and framework of certain leisure activities (fishing, jogging, walking, tourism, etc.)

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They are cut in nearly 1,500 plots, divided between almost as many owners: their areas vary from 13 m 2 at 1.5 ha. The marshes have been protected by a classification since 2003 under the “natural monuments and sites” regime governed by the environment code [ first ] . Two associations, bringing together part of the users of the marshes, contribute to their safeguard and protection, their development, their maintenance and their animation: the association of market gardeners of Bourges (AMB), and the Association Patrimoine des Marais (also called Association of users of the marshes of Yèvre and Vévantelle in Bourges, Aumyvb).

View of the marshes of Bourges

By “Marais de Bourges”, it is most often designated and retains in mind the marshes of the Yèvre and the Vianelle. However, the center of Bourges is surrounded by the west by the Auron valley, to the north and east by those of the Yèvre and its confluence with the Moulon and the Langis, as well as by what it Remains of their related wetlands, all arranged for a very large share in multiple private gardens.

View of the marshes of Bourges

This article mainly relates to the first “marshes”, which have the largest surface, and are the best integrated (geographically picked up and also socially structured).

In the singular, a “marshes” designates one of the 1,500 plots, often delimited by a vegetable hedge, a wire fence or the water of the different “flowing”. The name “Marais” is not entirely appropriate in the sense that the ecological sciences gives it. They have actually been arranged for several centuries, this involving modifications to the flow of water, biodiversity …

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The marshes of Bourges are with the Hortillonnages of Amiens, the Marais de Saint-Omer among the last representatives of market gardeners in France.

The Bourges cathedral from the banks of La Voirelle in the Marais de Bourges: we perceive the proximity of the city center.

In Bourges, the “lock” and the tightening of the Yèvre valley that brought the prominence towards the north of the southern plateau in the Yèvre (the projection on which the city originally developed, at Antiquity then In the Middle Ages, and still welcoming the center today), explains the presence of stagnant waters in the major bed upstream, especially during periods of high waters. They are located to the northeast and below this rocky relief, in contiguity of the Faubourg which developed along the current rue Édouard-Vaillant and avenue Marx-Dormoy.

The specific floors of these wetlands generated by constant humidity and the low circulation of water are very humus (rich in humus, which is decomposed plant material), in silts, and by the same fertile. The marshes of the Yèvre and the Visellle occupy in the major bed of the Yèvre a surface of shape close to the rectangle. I

They are delimited:

  • to the west by the building of avenue Marx-Dormoy, then after the bridge over the Vianelle by the false Pallouet and finally by the building of Avenue du Général-Chanzy;
  • to the south, by the building along the Yèvrette from the Chemin des Communes and rue Charlet;
  • To the east, by the chaussée de la Chappe and its building, then the embankment welcoming a commercial area;
  • To the north, by the three parallel axes of the Côte des Filles, the Nevers railway line, and the charity road.

Internal geographic organization and hydrology [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

A large hydrological network structures the marshes. This is organized around the Yèvre river, the Voirelle, the Yèvrette, the false pallouet (annexed courses of the Yèvre), and by a multitude of channels called “flowing”. There are the “upper” marshes, north of Yèvre and its dike, “bottom” marshes, to the south. While the latter are accessible on foot, and even by car thanks to a network of more or less carrosable land tracks, most of the plots of the “upper marshes” can only be reached by boat, by navigation on wider flowing than in the bottom marshes. The four-pole dam (located at the northwest end of the marshes) allows the regulation of the water level of the Yèvre, and the flowing of the upper marshes which are connected to it. This outpatient backup sometimes occurs to the detriment of the bottom marshes who are watered by these too full certain winters, while the floors are already saturated with water. These punctual episodes of submersion can however be appreciable, because vectors of deposits fertilizing the soil.

If the extension of urbanization on the marshes of the Yèvre and de la Voirelle is excluded in the medium term, by the constraints exerted by the regulatory documents of town planning of municipal and community communities (POS, and now PLU which replaces it ), and, since 2003, due to the classification as a natural site, the marshes are today faced with many other problems:

  • Multiplication of wasteland due to the aging of users and complicated successions;
  • Pollution of aquatic origin and diffusing in the soils: in particular from the Langis and the industrial zone which it travels just before confusing in the Yèvre, north of the marshes;
  • Depecking the market gardening and evolution of the uses of plots by owners and tenants (pleasure, relaxation garden);
  • Maintaining typical huts and modification of the landscape by the introduction of modern forms of garden real estate;
  • Invasement, filling of the flowing and collapse of the plots for lack of cleaning, faulty (cutting of aquatic plants) and enhancement; and because of the invasive vegetable species (Jussie (Ludwigia L.), myriophyll (myriophyllum aquaticum));
  • Regulation of the population of the Invasive Species Flévisse of Louisiana which upsets the aquatic ecosystem, and that of Ragondins.

Inhospitable natural margins transformed into a utilitarian environment through development, from the Middle Ages [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

By default favorable to the defense of the city against possible invaders due to their inhospitality and humidity (in any case on a part of its perimeter), these peripheral spaces do not cover any other function until VIII It is century, for lack of will and means to enhance them. They are even at the origin of many nuisances and risks, more or less serious: odors, vectors of pathogens, floods.

The control of the water course which was going to mobilize many actors over the centuries therefore did not lack motivations: sanitation of these wet areas hosts of many parasites (including the plague); overwhelming the risk of flooding linked to floods; Use of the driving force linked to the weight of water; direct use of water; Enhancement of land for agriculture (graze for breeders, market gardening).

In the absence of preliminary traces, it is estimated at VII It is or VIII It is century The first works undertaken in swamps. In these centuries of boom in Christianity, the monks of the different abbeys which are then established would be among the first to be interested and work there. These religious communities will play from there, and for a large part of their history, a leading role in their history (among them: communities chapter of Saint-Ursin, Saint-Étienne, and Benedictines of Saint-Laurent-in the ‘current Saint-Bonnet district). The containment of the Yèvre, and the digging of the yèvrette to circumscribe the flow of the water and dry the meadows would be the first work dated then.

This progressive mastery of water will make it easier for city dwellers and generate a new dynamic of crafts:

  • new potential for hydraulic mills powered by biefs and canals and which mold the grain, press nuts, set in motion scierie, tannery mechanisms;
  • Rooming and non -stagnant water renewed to wash;
  • Water taken from dyeing…

The water enclosed in a new and narrow artificial bed, large spaces are released. Breeding animals invest them to graze there, and thanks to the right of lively pasture in particular on communes (land not subject to private property). The clearing with a view to cultivation is initiated. Among these cultures, that of hemp intended for rope workshops (especially sailor) will be effective for a long time in the marshes, as in many localities in the Yèvre valley.

Fractionation of the property and rise in power of the merchant market gardening, from the Renaissance [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Among the few important dates in the history of the marshes of which we have today traces is that of the . The city, summoned by the central royal power to pay it any 60 000 Books as a war tax, separates from its municipalities that the then religious communities and rich inhabitants buy. In 1663, obligation was made to them, by decree, to maintain their newly acquired land. This constraint will initiate a strengthening of market gardening dynamics since many owners will choose to rent their plots to individuals. Thus around 70 market gardeners are identified at the time. Place Gordaine is the privileged place of market flow of their production. Similarly, the fruits of relatively prolific fishing (organized and reserved for fishing rights holders as is the “corporations of royal fishermen of Bourges”), find out of it.

With the Revolution, religious communities are dispossessed by the new state and their property (land, mills) sold divided on its account: the former tenants are among the first buyers. With this land splitting, the demographic boom generated by the concomitant demographic transition announces a second mutation. The increased demand for food strengthens the agricultural and market garden vocation of this space and cultures become more intensive. The upper marsh sector is the most marked of both by this professionalization. The multiplication of actors resulting from parcelization sees the increase in conflicts linked to the divergent uses of the marsh: the disagreements (sometimes judged in court) between millers and market gardeners about the control of the water level will be recurrent (the millers seek to raise water arrivals to ensure supply and actually induce an increase in levels downstream of their mills).

The establishment of military establishments in the city at XIX It is A century to the south of the marshes, and the development of adjacent workers (Charlet/Pignoux district) will feed the cohort of “amateur. There are many armaments employees who maintain a plot in the marshes outside working hours to complement family income.

Regression of professional uses and regression in the face of urbanization, from the end of XIX It is century [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Major providers of the city with vegetables, the activity of professional market gardeners installed in the marshes decreases from XX It is century. The progress of the transport of fresh products confront them with the competition of large operations that develop (in the Loire Valley in particular). Their number gradually declined until the 1970s (120 at the start of the XX It is century, eight tens in the 1930s, a dozen in the 1950s). The technical innovations, the increase and the regularity of the yields that they will also sound the end of the activity of the marshes, the industrial flour mills gradually replacing at the end of XIX It is century artisanal installations.+

Hitherto limited, the urbanization of peripheral swampy spaces goes during the XX It is century become a common. The urban front reaches them everywhere at the end of XX It is century. The strong land tension on these lands close to the city center, the urban choices retained favorable to the automobile and gourmet on the surface, the lowest sensitivity to environmental issues than today, as well as the modern techniques of buildings and public works contribute to the spread of the urban fabric on the humid terrains (highlighted, in particular by market gardening, or not). Considering all of these visible margins formerly (and not only the marshes of the Yèvre and the Viselle), we will cite as an example of urban projects carried out by encroaching on them: the development of the Garden of Prés-Fichaux in the 1930s; After the war, that of the exhibition center, campsite on the Prairie Saint Paul (facing the media library); The construction of the nautical center against near-fichaux in the late 1960s; The watering of the Val d’Auron in the south of the city, in the 1970s; More recently and north of the Boulevard de l’Avenir, the construction of the leisure center around the ice rink, the treatment plant.

View of the marshes of Bourges

Printed works [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

  • Robert Chaton, 1979: Bourges marshes and mills , Delayance, 133 p.
  • Christophe Gratias, 1995: marshes in the heart (Les Marais de Bourges) – Roland Melin photographs, 40p.
  • Jacques Mignault, Claude Csorgei, Jean-François Le Mouel & al., 2005: The marshes classified from Bourges . Bourges, association of users of the marshes of Yèvre and Vévantelle in Bourges, 30 p.
  • Stéphane Tsekas, 2006: Au Bonheur des Jardins – Marais and Markets de Bourges, 107 p.
  • Roland Narboux, 2010 : The marshes of Bourges. Romorantin, Communication Press Editions, [Number of unknown pages]
  • France Camuzat, 2016: The marshes of the Yèvre du Langis and La Vévéelle de Bourges – from the swamp to the classified marshes, a human adventure, 226 p.

Digital resources [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

On other Wikimedia projects:

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